Outdoors: Snakes need our protection — not fear of them

A Telegram &Gazette reader recently sent me a photo of a water snake killed in the area. MassWildlife reptile expert Peter Mirick judged that the big female was carrying many babies, none of which would ever be born.

What a shame. The person that killed it felt threatened by the impressive snake that looks far more sinister than it really is. He should have known better. But snakes have had bad PR and elicited negative, knee-jerk reactions since the Garden of Eden story was written — and well before.

Many snakes annually are killed in Massachusetts because of deep-rooted, reflexive fears inherited from our earliest ancestors. For thousands of years, they faced the likes of adders, vipers, cobras and pythons in Africa and later across the Middle East on their way to inhabit Europe and Asia. I'll never forget the father of one of my former science students reacting violent to them.

While mowing the lawn, he found numerous baby garter snakes the size of pencils emerging from a rotting stump. To his son's horror, he intentionally ran them over repeatedly with the mower, killing them all. The son's class had just finished writing a field guide to the reptiles and amphibians of Worcester County with me. They had handled all our local species many times during our research, so he knew garter snakes were harmless. Knowing these special animals by experiencing them intimately — especially in the hand — can prevent the development of harmful, irrational attitudes toward them. But that means a lot of early education. It's hard to erase snake fears in an adult.

Fly-fishing the West River by the West Hill Dam this spring, I noticed a broad-winged hawk carrying off a water snake that it caught sunning on a warm rock. It made me think back to another snake experience in my classroom. My principal, the late Don Thunberg, an especially fine educator, came to my room early one morning as he often did before student buses arrived. He was always curious about what I had brought in. Over the years, he had witnessed my dissections that had included road-kill beavers, pheasants, striped bass, deer and many other fish and game that were too valuable anatomically to be wasted. Curiously, he opened the lid of my 5-gallon bucket.

The petrified adult water snake inside lurched up defending itself the only way it could. It bit his threatening hand. While the damage amounted to mere pin-pricks and two parallel rows of tiny blood spots, Thunberg was visibly shaken. He never opened another container without asking first. But to his credit, he kept coming back — and participated later that day with my class, volunteering to hold the same snake after seeing several students properly do so without harm.

In contrast to Thunberg was a 200-pound guidance counselor — a dear friend and gentle giant — a wonderful man who wouldn't even walk in my room if he knew it held snakes. I tried my best to overcome his fear, but it was too late. We critically need to instill the benign nature of our local snakes in people while they're young. Snakes need protection, and they're unlikely to get it from people who fear them.

My strategy to eliminate that innate fear was to take newborn, September garter snakes — about as harmful as a spaghetti noodle. I'd always look for a petite, shy girl willing to hold one. Handing the snake to her, I'd typically watch her evolve from uncertainty to confidence, ultimately reflected in proud smiles, which emphatically conveyed to the boys and girls around her that the little snake was harmless, fun and fascinating. Once she exalted in her triumph, peer influence took over, and almost everyone would eagerly ask for an opportunity to hold it.

Eventually all but a hopelessly fearful few would hold the little snake. Regrettably, I found about 10 percent of every class never quite able to get past the overwhelming feelings they arrived with, feelings that were often exaggerated by fearful parents. Getting large numbers of people to like snakes and support their conservation is a formidable challenge. It can be done, though, — one little step at a time.

A few years back, while walking the gravelly periphery of the West River in Northbridge, I came upon a snake that startled me. It raised its body and expanded its hood in a threat just like a cobra. I jumped back. The thought went through my mind that one of our crazies could have actually released a cobra here, just as they've released pet alligators that have gotten too tough to manage. Upon careful examination, though, I saw that it was a hog-nosed snake, one of our most beautiful and dramatic species that is all bluff and totally harmless. When I confronted it to examine, it just went flaccid.

Despite the fact that as many as 400 people a year die in America from snake bites, most of us in Massachusetts don't know anyone who has ever been killed — or even bitten — by a venomous snake here. I can find only a couple of records in my entire lifetime.

When bites do occur in our region, they're usually the fault of the victim. Cape Cod emergency room doctor Nathan Rudman tells me he's never treated anyone for a wild, local snake bite. "A serious bite is far more likely to occur when someone illegally possessing a venomous snake mishandles it while drunk or showing off. In Massachusetts, snakes have far more to worry about us than we do about them."